ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkey launched a nationwide crackdown with thousands of police officers at dawn Friday, arresting hundreds of suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Islamists involved in the war in neighboring Syria.
One suspect was killed and 297 others were detained in raids involving helicopters and 5,000 police officers in16 Turkish provinces, according to local media reports that quoted Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
The raids follow a suicide bombing Monday by the Islamic State group in the Syrian border town of Suruc that killed 32 people and a cross-border ISIS clash in which a Turkish soldier was killed on Thursday,
Turkey, which has willingly allowed ISIS to use its territory to move fighters and goods from the vast territories it controls in Syria, has been urged by the United States and the West to crack down on the militants.
It has been accused of being more preoccupied with its Kurdish opposition than with the huge regional danger posed by ISIS.
Friday’s crackdown indicated that, while it may be declaring war on ISIS, Turkish authorities still remained focused on the Kurdish opposition.
The Dogan news agency said that 15 suspected members of the outlawed PKK were arrested in the western provinces of İzmir and Bursa. It reported that 90 people, including 37 foreigners, were arrested in raids at 140 locations in Istanbul.
A teenager was among at least two people detained in the southern province of Antalya on suspicion of PKK membership, local media reports said.
A statement by Davutoglu’s office claimed that the Suruc attack had been “exploited by the PKK and its affiliated elements, and marginal leftist terrorist organizations.”
He also said that a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) was killed while resisting arrest in Istanbul’s Bagcilar district, which is overwhelmingly Kurdish.
Davutoglu’s statement declared that Turkey was determined to fight against the group knowns as ISIS or ISIL, and other militant organizations.
“As in the past, today the state of the Republic of Turkey is determined in its multidimensional fight against the ISIL terrorist organization, the PKK terrorist organization and other international terrorist organizations,” Davutoglu said in his statement. “All kinds of measures are being taken for our nation’s serenity and security.”
